It occurred to me to wonder that if "cuid" is used before groups, masses, and abstractions, but not before single items, then would a fluent speaker read these as follows?


mo cháis = my cheese (= a single unbroken unit, like the single wheel of cheese I just bought)

mo chuid cáise = my cheese (= the mass, i.e. basically my whole collection/amount of cheese that I have)


In, English cheese is ambiguous this way: 'my cheese' can be either a single "a cheese" (= a wheel of cheese, etc.) or a mass of cheese.

So I'm not sure which way it might go in Irish: that the distinction in question does exist---or that cheese is just always seen as a mass, so even my single unbroken unit wheel of cheese is still mo chuid cáise. (And/or if the 'wheel of cheese' sense is what's intended, then an extra word like that would normally be added in.)

Any intuitions/experience in this are gratefully welcome!

I was hoping somebody else would answer this as I'm not good at grammatical questions.
I don't know what the Standard rules are for "cuid", but we ignore those anyhow in Conamara, where "cuid" is used more frequently.

mo cháis
mo chuid cáise
Personally I wouldn't see a difference between those two phrases, other than the latter one sounding more emphatic.

There are other words in English and Irish that don't need a plural, like milk and bread. You could have multiple slices of bread and you'd still say "my bread".
You can also say: Mo chuidse = mine. That's mine = Sin é mo chuidse.

Somebody else may be able to clarify it.

I don't know.

mo mheall cáise = my wheel of cheese


But I would say ...
In case you invent a new sort of cheese you'd call it "mo cháis" and not "mo chuid cáise"